MH370: Search for missing jet reaches 'critical' stage

The hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 is at a 'critical' stage, a
senior Malaysian official announces, as Australian officials coordinating
operations say underwater searches for its flight data recorders be
concluded within a week

By Tom Phillips, Shanghai

11:16AM BST 19 Apr 2014

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has reached a "critical juncture", Malaysia's defence minister said on Saturday, six weeks after the Boeing 777 vanished with 239 people onboard.

"It is my understanding that the search effort is entering a critical stage in the next 48 hours," Hishammuddin Hussein, who is also the country's acting transport minister, was quoted as saying by Malaysia's The Star newspaper.

"Whatever happens in that period, we will then regroup and discuss our next move," he added. "I appeal to everyone around the world to pray and pray hard that we find something to work on in the next couple of days."

Flight MH370 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it took off from Kuala Lumpur's international airport at 12.41am on March 8. The plane should have landed in Beijing at around 6.30am that morning but disappeared from radar around one hour after takeoff after entering Vietnamese air space.

With search operations now entering their seventh week, officials remain mystified by what happened. Malaysian authorities have said the plane was "deliberately" steered off course for an unknown reason.

A multi-national search effort, including teams from Australia, the US, the UK, China and Japan, has so far failed to find any trace of debris in an area of the southern Indian Ocean where Flight MH370 is believed to have "ended".

Eleven aircraft and 12 ships were continuing a visual search for debris on Saturday as the Bluefin-21, a US Navy autonomous underwater vehicle or AUV, began its seventh mission into a search area with a radius of 6.2 miles.

The unmanned submarine, which can operate at depths of up to around 14,800 feet, was deployed last Monday to a remote stretch of ocean where signals suspected of being from the Boeing's black box were detected on April 8.

Angus Houston, the former Australian air force chief leading the search effort, last week said he hoped the submarine would be able to locate debris on the ocean floor. However, so far it has found nothing. The underwater search for the plane's data recorders could be completed within five to seven days, Australian officials said on Saturday.

"Provided the weather is favourable for launch and recovery of the AUV and we have a good run with the serviceability of the AUV, we should complete the search of the focused underwater area in five to seven days," the country's Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre said.

The majority of the missing passengers are Chinese and some relatives continue to cling to hope.

"We believe the plane and our relatives are still alive," one Chinese relative, named only as Mr Zhang, told the Associated Press. "Bring them home, that's all we ask."